


Even Through Death

by EclipseOfTime



Category: Black Sails
Genre: A LOT of Angst, F/F, M/M, Mentions of Slavery, and at the time of writing this the florist/tattoo artist AU was a big thing don't judge me, colonial britain sucks, implications of terminal illness and vague mentioning of the AIDs epidemic, london in the 50s is based more off call the midwife than actual historical fact sorry, mentions of character deaths, some fluff and hope though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-20 14:12:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4790249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EclipseOfTime/pseuds/EclipseOfTime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Requested on tumblr: Maxanor reincarnation AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	Even Through Death

Max doesn’t know why she dreams of gunfire when she closes her eyes, but almost every night without fail she does. She dreams of smoke and fire burning buildings and in men’s eyes. Screams fill her mind, men, women, until just one that she runs, and runs, and runs too. Max has never seen the ocean either - she was born to the house, unlike her father and mother who were bought and brought to this land - but she thinks that’s what she must see in her dreams. It’s too deep, too blue, too vast to be anything else.

Her father tells her that not all souls are as young as their owners. That sometimes the world brings back the best, most beautiful souls, to live forever, even if they are not quite the same as they were before. He tells her that that’s what dreams are, memories breaking through and painting beautiful images for their hosts.

(She doesn’t tell him that her memories are anything but beautiful. There is death in the air and in her lungs and she sees red hair stained darker than it should be, the fine silk of a man’s shirt ruined and soiled and blossoming forth with crimson. A room full of gold more than Max knows she will ever see and yet she feels sick at the sight, for what good is riches if they cannot save you.)

The masters of her parents do not want her for their own, and she clings to her father, unwilling to let him go though she knows in this world she is unable to fight. No more than she was in the other, it seems. She is like cattle to these men in this cold, damp country, but dress her like she were a prize horse. Not so fine as their own, no, but enough to make them feel as if they treat her human enough.

Richard Guthrie is not a cruel man but nor is he kind. He is cold as the wind on his estate, as hard as the stone from which his house is wrought, and Max’s heart aches as she is given her duties. To clean, to be silent, to be as if a ghost.

It is by chance that she catches the young miss in the hallway, just a glance of blonde hair and sea-green eyes yet she feels as if struck by lightning.

That night the screams stop, filled with sighs and laughs and for the first time, she can smell the sea.

–

The stench of London makes her long for the sea. France had been her home, and the coast had kept her grounded, closer to something she couldn’t understand but made her feel at ease. The war had taken that from her, scarred the place that she had loved and made her unable to stay there without tossing and turning in her sleep, explosions playing in her mind, sand and blood springing into the air.

The people mostly ignore her though, which is well enough. They are not free of hatred but they do not express it so aggressively. In the filth and squalor following the war they care more for their own problems than they do to hang on to traditional bigotry. Some, she even learns to call friends.

That is how she ends up crouched with Charlotte, her hand crushed in the other woman’s hand as she rides out contractions. She mutters soothing words in both English and French, but it does little to curb Charlotte’s foul mouth, shooting off curse’s in between yelling for her husband Logan to ‘HURRY HIS ARSE HOME’.

In the end it is the midwife that arrives first.

She is sweating, her cheeks flushed pink and breathless, blonde hair falling messily around her face from the bun balanced precariously on top of her head and her green eyes sparkling with annoyance. “Four births in the one fucking night.” She mutters under her breathe.

Max cannot help but stare in awe as she takes in a deep breath, schooling herself before kneeling down next to the woman. “Help me get her upstairs to the bed. Then I’ll need you to heat some water, get me towels, rip up some sheets, all the usual.”

“The usual?” Max mutters, her thoughts scattered just a little both by Charlotte squeezing so tight she’s sure the circulation is gone from her fingers and the entrance of this formidable woman.

The midwife looks at her as if she is begging. “Please tell me you’ve seen a birth before.” Max shakes her head to say she hasn’t. “Fan-fucking-tastic.”

Once it is all done, struggle as it was, Max stands in the kitchen, having left when Logan barged in, barreling through and demanding not to be sent outside. “Your friends have a boy.” The midwife - Eleanor, Max had learned when she had exasperatedly tried to introduce herself to Charlotte through the other woman screaming bloody murder - supplies, cleaning her hands at the sink before removing her cap, hair even messier than before. Max thinks that she may be the most beautiful woman she has ever seen.

“Logan will be happy. He always wanted a boy named Billy.” She mutters, smiling to herself and trying not to squirm as Eleanor assesses her closely, almost like she is scrutinising her.

“Have we…” She falters, just a little, almost looking as if she won’t continue before clearing before. “Have we met before?”

Max shakes her head, laughing slightly. “Max ‘as never had children, so I doubt it.”

“Max.” Eleanor mutters under her breathe, seeming not to even have noticed that she has done so and Max cannot help but pray she will utter it again. “Never?” She sounds almost broken, like a child begging for their parent to tell them that the world is not as dark as it seems.

“No.” Max feels a tug at her own heart at the admission, the offending organ jumping into her throat as she licks her lips. “But perhaps we might meet again?”

–

“I need to get you back to bed, James.” Eleanor mutters, fists clenched at her side until her knuckles burn white. She glances at Flint, begging him to give in to her, but he seems unwilling to budge.

“I have to see him, Ellie.” He mumbles, barely able to muster anything more these days, wobbling slightly on his feet as he tries to step around her “I have to.”

“James.”

“ _Don’t._ ” He hisses, eyes shining up at her pleadingly. “I don’t have time to sleep and waste in here.” He sounds almost strong again but the trembling hand that clings to her shoulder and the tremors she feels as she wraps an arm around him betray it.

“You already said goodbye.” She forces out, hating the way his eyes flick away from her. “You’ll…” She gulps down the lump in her throat as she tries to coax him back. “You’ll see him again, soon.”

“You don’t believe that.” He mutters, eyes burning into her. “You don’t believe _in_ that.” He raises a trembling hand to the cross hanging around his neck, clutching it. “Not for people like us. That’s what they say.”

Eleanor wants to spit and curse at the world but all she can do is take his hand away and clasp it in her own. “Fuck what they say.”

“Yeah,” Eleanor nearly jumps at the voice that comes from behind them, but her heart lightens at the sight of the woman sauntering towards them, “fuck ‘em.”

“Max.” Flint manages to smirk. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“You are planning a breakout and do not invite Max?” She inquires, feigning hurt as she holds a hand to her chest.

“I’m trying to avoid the breakout, actually.” Eleanor grumbles, glaring at her girlfriend though the heat isn’t there. “He needs to sleep.”

“He needs to be with who he loves.” Max counters, playfulness gone as she steps forward, disentangling Flint’s hand from Eleanor’s and hooking his arm over her shoulder, mirroring Eleanor. “He has you, _ma chérie_ , but you know you are not enough.”

Eleanor sighs, readjusting Flint’s arm across her shoulders and scowling as his lips tremble up into a smug grin. “Undermine me much?” She grumbles, trying to act as if the truth doesn’t cut so deep as it does.

“I do it for I know if it were me,” Max runs her hand feather light along Eleanor’s side, forcing her eyes to her, “I would fight everything to reach you, even through death.”

–

Water shortages and hosepipe bans are a common occurrence during the summer and yet Eleanor never learns. “Fucking shit.” She grumbles, twisting at the tap and willing anything to dribble out, but it doesn’t. Owning a flower shop is all well and good in the summer when every asshole convinces themselves that this is the year they’ll take up gardening and stick to it but only if she can keep said flowers alive.

She gives in with a sigh of defeat, kicking the unit for good measure before storming back out to the storefront and grabbing her keys from the counter. The sign swings around to ‘close’ as she slams the door, locking it tight before making a dash across the road to the garage, flipping her finger up at the guy who decides to slam his horn at her.

It isn’t even five minutes that she’s storming back across the road, water-less and charging towards the shop of the ‘tattoo-chick who came in in the morning and decided to take everything’. Eleanor’s days tend to go from shit to double shit on a fairly regular basis, especially when she’s had a rather sleepless night like last. All her nightmares involve fire and it’s safe to say she doesn’t enjoy the heat.

“Alright dickhead, wha-” She’s ready to rip a new one, she really is but, well, the golden eyes that jump up to meet hers weigh a little too heavily on her and, without the buzzing of the needle, they’re stuck in an awkward staring match with each other while tattoo-chick’s customer looks between them just a little confused and a lot put off.

“Can I ‘elp you?” Eleanor doesn’t expect the accent, and is kind of thrown because it feels familiar and yet Eleanor is pretty sure she’s never met anyone French, especially not this girl who she is so sure she would remember because, _wow._

“I, umm…” Under the piercing gaze and raised eyebrow of the gorgeous woman, she can’t help but feel embarrassed. “I came to ask if I could borrow some water.”

Tattoo-chick looks skeptical that Eleanor came to make a mere request of the water, returning to her work on her customer’s arm, the buzz breaking the tension only made thicker by the heat. “Of course.” She pauses just briefly in her work before to look up through her lashes. “But it’ll cost you.”

Eleanor huffs a little at that. “For fuck’s sake, OK, what?”

“Your name,” she says returning to her work, seemingly ignoring Eleanor as she focuses, “and your number.”


End file.
